The Words in the Order You Meet Them
How the library hands itself over: a few words at the door, more at the table, some at the Gate, a handful more in your own Home and in the Room, and the rest when its meaning becomes your need. Every word is given the first time you meet it, in one line, and linked after, so you can always look again. There is no fixed number of them. A whole curriculum at the door is a wall; one lesson when you are about to need it is a door.
The law of just in time
The Game is learned by playing it, in a Cell, with a Quest, keeping a weekly word. Knowledge arrives in the order the road needs it, never as a syllabus. A lesson is one thing a player is about to need; lessons compose into modules on a shelf; the modules sit in the context of a journey, the path a person walks through them in the order their own play asks for. A player is never asked to carry a word they have not been handed, and no rung's words appear on the surface of a rung below it; where a word must appear early, it is given there, in one line.
The ladder has six rungs. Each names its words, its lessons, its cards, and the office that hands them.
Rung 1 — The Door
Someone who loves you carries the Story to you. The office: the Carrier who brought it, and the Guide who greets.
Words: ØNE · Heaven On Earth · The Goal · The Story · The Game · The Flame · LIØNSBERG · The Invitation · the compass question. What you read: the Golden Seed's invitation (a page), the Story in a breath, the Game in one page. What you do: decide whether it resonates. Nothing else. If it does, you say yes in your own words to the one who gave it to you: that is Accept The Invitation. Lesson: Becoming a Player+ (the first lesson of the Player+ Modules): what a Player+ is, and that a notebook is enough.
Rung 2 — The Table
Three to thirteen people, a kitchen table, the first evening. The office: two hosts, chosen at the table.
Words, in their order: Cell (and a Circle, the gathering that is not yet one) · Quest · Commitment · Turn · Season · a story · Offering · Carrier · Home Cell · Supercell · Proposal; and for the child who asks, ØNE and Heaven again. What you read: the Little Book of the Great Game: the Story told at the table, the Game at the table, the five moves, the week, the season, the cards. What you do: form the Cell and name it; agree aloud how you will treat one another; choose one Quest for one season; fix the day; hold the first Turn (did · gap · will · offer · ask · story · Offering · thanks); mark the Circle's Scorecard; within a week, each name the two or three who are ready. Cards: the Playcard received; the Questcard; the Circle's Scorecard; the Circle Sheet. Lessons: Entering the Field (the six lines you said yes to) · Play the Game · The Weekly Turn · Daily Life.
Rung 3 — The Gate
Give your word, name your three, take your name. The office: the Guide, and the witness.
Words: Player · The Roll · brought by, witnessed by · your six (the three you would most trust to help lead your own place, and the three you would trust anywhere) · The Pledge · Sovereign · Player+. What you read: the Field of Agreements in full; the Pledge. What you do: give your word on the Roll; name your three within two days; choose how you are named; if you have an agent, it carries your yes and can never give one. Lessons: Before Your First Room · Gratitude, Lineage and Licensing (what you create stays yours and joins the commons).
Rung 4 — Home
Your own place inside the Cell that holds you; the first season kept. The office: the keeper of the record.
Words: Home · Season Sheet · The Way Up · The Way Out · The Return · Value · TEA · LUV · Request · Offer · kept as a share of made · OmniSpection · Selectively Permeable Membrane · Field of Agreements · Commons · Consent · Meaningful Objection. What you read: the seed text's Part V (the Game, whole) and Part VII (Building); Where Value Flows; the Season Sheet's fourteen lines. What you do: keep the Turn for a season; fill the Season Sheet at the turning; send it to your home; make and keep commitments Cell to Cell; hold the season's OmniSpection; pass the Flame and become a Carrier. Lessons: The Heads-up and the Play by Play (if you play with an agent) · Structuring a Cell — LIØNSBERG FSx · The Agent Improvement Process.
Rung 5 — The Room
Many houses at one table; the supercell; the community body. The office: the hosts of the room, and the Guide.
Words: Superorganism · Community · The 300 · Community Company · Levels of Scale · Chatham House Rule · Elision · venue card · safe sparring · posture · Stop · Sighting · Pain · The Board · Work Card · Integrated Delivery · Stewardship · Eldership · Seats at the Table. What you read: the seed text's Part IV (the Pattern: the Twelve Irreducible Elements, the Seven Recognitions, the Anti-Patterns; the Community Company; the legal form); the Community Guidebook; the Operating System. What you do: federate: three Cells become one another's home; found the community body with its steering committee that dissolves itself; carry the Season Sheets up; propose by edition; steward the commons; keep the room's terms at the door. Lessons: Venue Cards · Safe Sparring · Jam Conventions · How a Module Lives · An Agent That Attends to You.
Rung 6 — Beyond
As deep as you will go: the Pattern Language, the Pillars, the Path, the plans and specifications of the new civilization. The office: the Guide, the elders, and the library itself.
Words: the Twelve Pillars by name · the Twelve Irreducible Elements by name · the Seven Constitutional Recognitions · the nine Anti-Patterns · The Sovereign's Path and its twelve stages · The 144 Gates · The Sacred Ascent · Belt · Cosmic Locality · FSx · The Meta Project · The Window · The First Three Percent; and the whole Lexicon, one page each. What you read: the One Book; the Pattern Language; the Pillars and their plans and specifications; Pass The Flame whole; the Story at every depth. What you do: walk the Path; take up a Pillar's work in a guild, in a place, in a tradition; write down what you built so the next community need not begin again; improve the seed by proposal, weekly. Lessons: Agent Engineering · Advanced Agent Engineering · Read the Story · Pass the Flame.
Three sizes of the whole
- The twenty: the words of the door and the table. Enough to play. One evening.
- The two hundred: everything a Cell meets in its first season, rungs two to four. One season.
- The thousand and beyond: the whole field, rungs five and six, in the order the road needs them. A lifetime is not enough to master them; a child can begin in five minutes.
The lists of the twenty and the two hundred are computed from the field's own pages and kept at The Twenty and The Two Hundred.
For an agent that guides
Hand each word the first time it is met, in one line, and link it. Never hand a rung's words below its rung. Read where your person is on the ladder from what they are doing, not from what they have read. Serve the next stretch, never the one after: the zone of optimum development. When they ask for more, give the page; when they do not, give nothing. A person with a notebook is a complete player at every rung.
Canon: A Word on Words (the Little Book, second draft) · The Twelve Words · The LIØNSBERG Quick Start Guide · LIØNSBERG Orientation and Training System · the Player+ Modules (twenty lessons) · The Site Plan of this library.